Patients in Pennsylvania who suffer injuries or medical complications due to negligent treatment from hospital staff can file a lawsuit against the hospital. If you were harmed by hospital negligence, you may have the right to seek compensation for your medical bills, lost income, and pain and suffering.
The experienced Philadelphia medical malpractice attorneys at Eisenberg Winkler Jeck Schwartz Schoenhaus & Sherry, P.C. have the knowledge and resources to advocate for you in court to obtain the financial relief and justice you deserve. We have a proven track record of success in hospital negligence claims, including a $54 settlement for a client who suffered brain damage from a basilar artery stroke, a $15 million recovery against a hospital and doctors for a delayed diagnosis of epidural abscesses, and a $11.2 million verdict against a hospital that failed to diagnose a brain tumor. You don’t have to face this challenging time alone. Contact our law office today for a free consultation with a medical malpractice lawyer in Philadelphia.
What Is Hospital Negligence?
Hospital negligence is a form of medical malpractice that occurs when hospital staff fail to adhere to the applicable standard of care in treating a patient, causing the patient to suffer injuries or medical complications. Staff physicians, nurses, physician’s assistants, pharmacists, and radiology and lab technicians, can all commit hospital negligence.
Although the standard of care can differ depending on the situation, medical professionals broadly define the standard of care as the treatment decisions or actions that other healthcare professionals of similar training and experience would undertake in identical circumstances. Thus, medical malpractice does not occur simply because a patient suffers an adverse outcome or complication. The law holds healthcare providers liable for negligence when other providers of similar qualifications would not have rendered the same treatment.
Failure to Maintain Safety and Quality
Hospitals must adopt policies and procedures to ensure staff treat patients according to the standard of care. Although adverse events or complications will occur, patient harm may rise to the level of medical malpractice when a healthcare facility fails to create or maintain a culture of safety and quality. Many medical malpractice claims arise from incidents where healthcare facilities have inadequate safety policies and procedures or hospital staff carelessly or intentionally disregard policies. A culture of safety and quality also requires a hospital to have adequate staff and equipment to treat patients. Medical malpractice can occur when staff become overworked due to inadequate staffing levels.
How Common Is Hospital Malpractice?
According to data from the American Medical Association (AMA) Physician Benchmark Survey, which analyzed trends in medical liability claim frequency from 2016 to 2024, 29.7% of physicians have been sued for medical malpractice at some point during their career. This number increases with age and the number of years of experience, as the AMA reports that 45.2% of physicians aged 55 or older have been sued, compared to 11% of physicians under the age of 45. Additionally, surgical specialties carry the highest risk, with 59.6% of obstetricians and gynecologists and 53.1% of general surgeons having been sued at least once during their medical careers. The AMA also cites research that 6,779 claims were closed that involved adult patients in U.S. hospital-based emergency department or ambulatory urgent care settings in a recent 15-year period.
According to the National Practitioner Data Bank, 42,954 adverse event reports and 11,263 medical malpractice payment reports were made in 2025. 806 and 993 of these reports were filed in Pennsylvania, respectively.
Additionally, a landmark study by Johns Hopkins Medicine attributes more than 250,000 deaths annually to medical errors, making medical malpractice the third leading cause of death nationwide behind heart disease and cancer.
Examples of Hospital Negligence in Pennsylvania
Hospital staff can be negligent in patient care in various ways. Some of the most common examples of hospital negligence in Pennsylvania include:
- Inadequate staffing levels
- Failure to screen employees, including hiring employees who have a criminal background or a history of committing medical malpractice
- Failing to train or supervise employees
- Not developing or adhering to policies and procedures designed to reduce the chances of patient harm, such as patient identification procedures or infection control policies
- Failing to inspect and replace or repair defective, broken, or worn equipment
- Failure to maintain hygiene or sterile environments leading to hospital-acquired infections, such as sepsis
- Inadequate monitoring
- Medication errors, including failing to adhere to the medication schedule, miscalculating dosage, misreading the prescription, or making a wrong medication/wrong patient error
- Triage errors
- Premature discharge
- Misdiagnosis, failure-to-diagnose, and delayed diagnosis
- Lack of documentation
- Failure to provide post-discharge instructions
- Lack of patient follow-up
- Failure to treat
- Improper use of devices and equipment
- Surgical errors, including wrong site/patient/procedure, anesthesia errors, accidentally perforating or severing tissues, or leaving equipment or instruments inside a patient
- Failure to obtain informed consent
- Physical or sexual assault of a patient
How to File a Claim for Hospital Negligence in Pennsylvania
Under Pennsylvania’s statute of limitations for medical malpractice claims, you have two years from the date you suffered harm due to medical malpractice to file a lawsuit against the healthcare facility and the negligent staff members. However, this deadline can extend or “toll” if you do not immediately discover the injury or harm caused by hospital negligence. In such a case, you would have to file suit two years from when you discovered or should have discovered that you suffered harm due to hospital negligence. Although two years may seem like plenty of time to file a lawsuit, your medical malpractice attorney will need weeks or months to investigate your case, gather evidence, and prepare your legal claim. The court can dismiss medical malpractice lawsuits filed after the deadline. If so, you may lose your right to seek compensation in civil court.
When filing a medical malpractice claim, 231 Pa. Code Rule 1042.3 requires the person filing, or the “plaintiff,” to file a “certificate of merit” with the complaint or within 60 days of filing the lawsuit. The certificate of merit must verify that an appropriately licensed healthcare professional has provided a written statement expressing their opinion, to a reasonable degree of medical certainty, that a hospital provider’s treatment fell outside the applicable standard of care and caused the plaintiff’s harm. A medical malpractice plaintiff must file a certificate of merit even when pursuing a claim of employer liability against a hospital after receiving negligent care from staff. The certificate of merit must assert that the plaintiff does not need expert testimony from a licensed medical professional for claims involving obvious negligence, like surgical equipment left inside a patient.
Why Choose Our Philadelphia Hospital Negligence Attorney
The hospital malpractice lawyer you choose to represent you can make a significant difference in the outcome of your case. Not every personal injury firm is prepared to take these complex cases to trial, but Eisenberg Winkler Jeck Schwartz Schoenhaus & Sherry, P.C. is. Our personal injury, medical malpractice, and hospital negligence lawyers have over 130 years of combined legal experience, which we have successfully leveraged to obtain more than $4 billion in compensation for our clients. We are so confident in our ability to secure maximum compensation for you that we dedicate our own resources to your hospital negligence claim.
Some of the major victories we have against hospitals, medical groups, and individual medical practitioners include the following:
$54 Million in a Medical Malpractice Case Alleging Brain Damage
Our medical malpractice attorneys secured a $54 million medical malpractice settlement for a client who suffered brain damage from a basilar artery stroke that multiple medical providers failed to diagnose. This is believed to be one of the largest medical malpractice settlements in Pennsylvania.
$14 Million Against a Hospital for Failure to Monitor a Patient in the ICU
Our law firm secured $14 million in a wrongful death case after the hospital’s failure to properly monitor a patient’s vital signs.
$14 Million Against a Hospital and Doctors for Delaying an MRI
After our client’s medical condition went undiagnosed due to the lack of an MRI, leading to a delay in diagnosis and treatment, our legal team secured a $14 million recovery against the negligent hospital and doctors.
$14 Million Recovered in a Medical Malpractice Case
Our law firm secured another $14 million victory after a neurosurgeon allegedly negligently performed an endovascular embolization surgery to seal off a brain aneurysm.
$11.2 Million Against a Local Hospital
We secured an $11.2 million verdict against a local hospital that failed to properly diagnose a brain tumor, leading to our client suffering catastrophic injuries. We successfully demonstrated that the condition could have been easily detected during earlier visits.
We know that these successful outcomes allow our clients to have the resources they need to move forward with their lives, as one former client explained:
“Thank you so much for your work on our case. You and your entire team were amazing throughout the whole process between how empathetic and understanding you all were. I cannot even begin to express how much this settlement means for our family in terms of the financial security it will bring.”
– Mihailo
3 Things to Do if You Suspect Hospital Negligence Before You Are Discharged
If you believe that you have received negligent healthcare in a hospital setting, take the following three steps to protect your legal rights and health:
- Request medical records: You have the right to your medical information. You don’t have to provide a reason for your request. Ask for complete copies of your medical records, including doctors’ notes, charts, imaging studies, and any other relevant medical documentation.
- Talk to an advocate: You can call our legal team for assistance, or you can contact the hospital’s patient advocate or ombudsman if you are worried about an unsafe discharge or other health or safety concern.
- Seek a second opinion: Contact another healthcare provider and make an appointment to see them to get a second opinion.
You can also file a complaint against a healthcare facility online and arrange a free consultation with our team to learn more about your legal rights.
Contact Our Experienced Hospital Negligence Attorneys in PA
If you’ve suffered harm due to careless or reckless treatment from hospital staff, let a Philly hospital negligence attorney from Eisenberg Winkler Jeck Schwartz Schoenhaus & Sherry, P.C. help you pursue the compensation you deserve for your losses. Contact our firm today for a free, no-obligation consultation with our experienced medical malpractice lawyers in Pennsylvania.
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Eisenberg Winkler Jeck Schwartz Schoenhaus & Sherry, P.C.
1634 Spruce St, Philadelphia, PA, 19103
Phone: (215) 585-2814
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